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Dehaven Eye Clinic Case Study

Clinic outgrows phone system

DeHaven Eye Clinic had an outdated Nortel PBX-based telephone system that wasn’t performing properly and was unable to accommodate the company’s planned growth.

A system that is easy to use and less expensive

DeHaven Eye Clinic’s system was negatively impacting customer service. Voicemail messages were being lost, sometimes retrieved days later, and calls were being dropped because the system was simply maxed out. To add more extensions, DeHaven Eye Clinic would have had to replace the smaller system with an entirely new Nortel system. Realizing that an upgrade meant an entire rip-and-replace, Donna Rayborn, one of the clinic’s managers, and Christopher Morris, the clinic’s IT manager, decided it was time to look at different vendors.

Top priorities for a new VoIP platform included reliability, ease of use, simpler administration, and dependable support. Another consideration was that a replacement solution would still need to support hot desking, a technology that allows users to log in at any phone rather than having assigned seats and desktops. Meyer evaluated new solutions from ShoreTel, Avaya, and Cisco. During his research, he came across a third-party solution integrator, Converged Technology Professionals, a ShoreTel Certified Gold Partner and Customer Satisfaction Award winner.

Seeing is believing

DeHaven worked with a technology integrator and value-added reseller that presented a solution from ShoreTel. DeHaven Eye Clinic also looked at a carrier-based solution. But it quickly became clear that ShoreTel was the right solution.

“We immediately realized and appreciated ShoreTel’s focus on customer satisfaction,” says Rayborn. “Its resellers are provided with incentives to achieve high scores for customer satisfaction. That’s not the way things are with many other vendors—we’ve had past experience where we’ve been ignored by other vendors after the sale. That was the first thing we learned about ShoreTel, a focus on customer satisfaction, and things only got better from there.”

ShoreTel simplifies management and saves on long-distance and line charges

With the ShoreTel system in place, all DeHaven Eye Clinic employees are now on the same phone and voicemail system, using four-digit dialing to reach employees at any branch and even dialing co-workers by name. “The ShoreTel system is easy to use and everybody loves it,” says Rayborn. “It was an easy transition from the old system to ShoreTel—ShoreTel is just so simple.”

The clinic can minimize costs by sending inter-office calls over the data network to avoid paying toll charges. Least-cost routing also allows the clinic to capitalize on the existing infrastructure to bypass tolls.

“With ShoreTel in place, we estimate our long-distance rates have dropped about 50 percent—many of these calls were office to office—long distance between Tyler and Longview,” explains Rayborn. “Now all of these are local calls. We have also been able to eliminate quite a few phone lines—probably around 20 phone lines, saving us $500 per month.”

The benefits of ShoreTel IP telephony are crystal clear

The ShoreTel IP telephony system provides integrated messaging, such as directory dialing, contact screen pop, and calendar integration. This means that in addition to ShoreTel’s highly functional telephones, DeHaven Eye Clinic employees get unified messaging so voicemail shows up in their email inbox, desktop call control allows them to manage the way their phones work, and features like Find Me allow them to have calls track them down wherever they are—at their desk, on their cell phone, or at home if they choose.

The friendly, graphical interface of ShoreTel Personal Call Manager provides easy access to sophisticated features, including SoftPhone, a utility that delivers telephony capabilities to any PC. With calls directed to a laptop and a headset plugged into the USB port, employees can work from anywhere.

“WITH SHORETEL IN PLACE, WE ESTIMATE OUR LONGDISTANCE RATES HAVE DROPPED ABOUT 50 PERCENT—MANY OF THESE CALLS WERE OFFICE TO OFFICE—LONG DISTANCE
BETWEEN TYLER AND LONGVIEW. NOW ALL OF THESE ARE LOCAL CALLS.”

Donna Rayborn, Manager
DeHaven Eye Clinic

DeHaven Eye Clinic is also using ShoreTel workgroups in departments such as appointment scheduling, surgical counseling, and financial services. “Our patients like it much better now with the ShoreTel system and workgroups,” states Morris. “Patients and referring sources like having a live person answer the phone – they actually tell us how happy they are about it. We pride ourselves on offering this level of service to our patients, and ShoreTel helps us achieve our communication goals.”

Finally, each DeHaven Eye Clinic employee also has his or her own direct inward dialing, or DID number, which gives patients direct access to the staff. This further improves customer responsiveness by allowing patients to call their clinic contacts directly, and it also reduces the amount of calls that go through the operator, improving overall efficiency.

Ease of management

DeHaven Eye Clinic uses ShoreTel Director for end-to-end management of the system. ShoreTel Director is a browser-based management interface that provides access to the system from anywhere on the network, enabling easy management of everything, including voicemail, automated attendant, and desktop applications. It takes seconds to add a new user and the system automatically updates the centralized database and every voice switch.

“ShoreTel makes it easy to grow within an office location and to add a new location,” said Rayborn. “It’s easy to do moves, adds, and changes, and to teach other people how to do these things.”

The investment in ShoreTel IP is well received by users

DeHaven Eye Clinic is ready to grow with ShoreTel and is extremely happy with the service received from both ShoreTel and its reseller. Plans are in place to add another location, and the clinic envisions a smooth transition.

“ShoreTel focuses on customer satisfaction more than other vendors I’ve dealt with. I love the ShoreTel system and so does everybody else. Our customers appreciate that they reach a live person whenever they need to—day or night—and we really value all of the information we get from the system, from data on calls received and length of calls to how long people have been kept on hold. It’s night and day going from the old system to the ShoreTel system now, and we couldn’t be more satisfied. ShoreTel has enhanced our communications practices both externally and internally,” concludes Rayborn.

“IT’S NIGHT AND DAY GOING FROM THE OLD SYSTEM TO THE SHORETEL SYSTEM NOW, AND WE COULDN’T BE MORE SATISFIED. SHORETEL HAS ENHANCED OUR COMMUNICATIONS
PRACTICES BOTH EXTERNALLY AND INTERNALLY.”

CHALLENGE:

The clinic needed a solution that would be easy to manage in-house, scale as the clinic grew, and meet the rigorous demands of a healthcare organization.